


Say Nothing

by my_words



Category: Tommy Ratliff (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/380878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_words/pseuds/my_words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you really want to say yes but can't, and you hope to hell they don't stop asking you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Too long to be a drabble, too short to be a ficlet. It is what it is, and it is what it wanted to be

Tommy tells himself to stay quiet and still. If he’s quiet and still no one will notice him and nothing has to change. He doesn’t do change well, at least not when he’s afraid that change won’t bring him closer to what he wants, what he needs.

If he’s quiet and still maybe time will slow down, maybe even stop for a second. He needs that second to live in what could have been instead of facing what’s going to be. He’s spent too long saying no, too long saying not me. He wasn’t ready to say yes before, but he is now, and now he thinks it’s too late. 

But he couldn’t make himself say yes before. He was afraid of what yes meant, what it would mean for him. Yes would mean he was someone else, someone he didn’t know how to be, someone he would have to get to know from the inside out. Someone he would have to learn to accept. Now he knows he always wanted to say yes, but somehow it always came out as later or not yet.

Even in the beginning something deep inside knew he wanted to say yes. He’d even said maybe once; a maybe that had screamed yes in his heart, while he’d hoped everyone else only heard it as no, because that change thing...? Yeah, he wasn’t strong enough for it then, either. 

That maybe was more than a no, though, just like it was more than a simple yes. It was a plea; it was his way of begging. It said _Please, please ask me again. Ask me one more time, and then again after that. Ask me again, and again, and again until I have no more no’s or laters or maybes. Please ask me until all I have left to answer is yes._

Tommy knows in his heart that his time of being asked is past. He knows that his no’s came too often. He knows that no one could be expected to keep asking, and asking, and fucking asking. Time and people wear down and move on. They find someone else to ask; someone who’s not afraid of answering yes.

But if he’s quiet and says nothing, maybe he can live in this inbetween space forever. Maybe he won’t have to face all those no’s he used to keep people away. If he’s quiet and still - if he says nothing - he can pretend someone still cares enough to ask.


End file.
